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iPhone XS Max Is the mobile reception on the xs Max even worse than iPhone X ?
- Thread starter mydogeatsbeats
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I have no idea if hardware or software issue.
Couple days ago I was in bad spot that my X worked fairly okay but slow. In that same exact spot with XS, I could not get any LTE or 4G. Did not have any data service. I have no idea if not getting same band as X or can’t grab signal strong enough. I can’t remember any iPhone having that problem. Everyone else in the room was fine. No other XS there.
Edit: My XS works fine to great is most places that I normally am at. I just want to have some level of minimum expectation in areas that I know are questionable. Right now don’t know what to expect. My 14 day return window is up tomorrow and not sure what to do yet.
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Same here for me just this past weekend, but mine never showed "No Service" it would just show one bar of LTE or 4G and do nothing. As noted, I think it's just connecting to the wrong tower.
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I'm not saying you should keep the phone. By all means, return it and wait until it gets sorted IF it gets sorted. If it doesn't get one of those sweet S9's or Pixel3s. Both are great phones.
I do think it's at least partially a software issue. I don't know for certain nor do I claim too and I'm not an Apple shill and I'm floored that they screwed this up so badly. It's just based purely on my own rooting around the service menu, my rudimentary understanding of cell phone engineering and my extensive software background.
It's impacting users across all carriers. Not only that, but it is impacting users on the same carriers differently as well. As many have cited, no one has a clear idea on a root cause.
I have the XS Max on AT&T in NYC and cellular/LTE have been garbage. People comment saying how I should have chosen Verizon etc. All jokes and snark aside, I never had issues on AT&T in NYC before. My previous phone was the 7+ and I never had the issues I am experiencing now. I would honestly love for it to be software and am hoping for a fix. Oddly enough other NYC users in AT&T are having no issue, while others are in the same boat I am. No rhyme or reason to this.
Again I'm no expert, maybe one technical level above your average consumer. However all I can tell you is that compared to the 7+ there is definitely some type of issue with my XS Max.
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I have an AT&T XS Max. While I did have some issues immediately after purchase driving from LA to Phoenix, after the last couple of updates I haven’t noticed many problems.
This is NOT new behavior. My iPhones have done this for YEARS on Verizon. iPhone 7, 8, XS, etc.
Coming off airplane mode, they lock onto band 13. Band 13 is STRONG but has lower capacity and speeds. It's kind of like the 2.4GHz band in WiFi. After 30 seconds or so, the phone goes from 4 bars of band 13 down to 1-2 bars and switches to band 4. Band 4 is like 5GHz - faster speeds but worse range.
Again, the iPhones have behaved this way for years on Verizon. I don't use other networks so I can't speak to those.
The problem is that the phone never switches back to the stronger band (band 13) once the band 4 signal gets bad enough. It would rather drop a call or have the voice cut out for 5-10 seconds at a time with 1 bar of band 4 signal vs. switching to a strong band 13.
I understand why the phone doesn't like band 13. The capacity is low and the data speeds are slow. But if I'm on WiFi, I don't care about LTE data speeds. In this case, the phone should happily switch to the stronger band 13 once my band 4 signal gets bad enough. It doesn't do this. This is where the problem lies in my opinion.
I'm convinced it has something to do with the software and the new MIMO antennae design. Why it affects some phones and not others I'm not sure, though I will say I'm several levels above the average consumer technically and I understand some of the challenges when writing baseband software. It's not as simple as "get the strongest signal" because often times that doesn't necessarily give you the best experience. Imagine tower A is close to you but transmitting at a higher frequency. This tower would probably be the best if you were stationary. But imagine Tower B is farther away but is transmitting on a lower frequency that handles distances better. If you are moving you would likely want to be on Tower B as even though it's weaker at the given point, it'll likely be stronger only a small distance away due to it's frequency travelling greater distances. Now you might ask, why not just easily switch between the two? The problem is that switching between radio towers requires the radio to actually poll that tower, which uses battery power. You can obviously poll quite frequently for superior performance, but it's going to drain the battery.
My layman's guess is there's something wrong in the algorithm that is used to determine which tower to utilize, perhaps even flat out rejecting towers in an effort to find another preferred frequency.
Again, I'm completely guessing, but it wouldn't be the first time that a software engineer has tried to make software extra user friendly and end up making it worse rather than better.
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I know it's always worked like that and our points are kind of the same. It's not switching back to a stronger, superior band for some reason. Why? Who knows (not even Apple does at this point unfortunately.)
I bought a Xs Max on Sunday. I have had no reception, data or wifi issues. In fact, I've had no issues at all. I am just thrilled with this powerful and beautiful pocket computer. Certainly the finest phone I've owned.
Agreed. I've even had issues with iPhones connecting to the Verizon LTE Network Extender (femotcell/microcell). The Verizon Network Extender broadcasts on band 13 by default. I've had several iPhones that would not connect to the network extender gracefully upon returning home. They would sit on the cell tower, connected to a weak band 4 signal instead (for hours after returning home). Most of the time, they would only connect to the Network Extender if I toggled airplane mode. At that point, they would see the strong band 13 signal and connect to it (and stay connected to it).
Verizon engineers can switch the network extender to band 4 however. This completely resolves the issue of the iPhones not connecting to the extender gracefully. No more toggling of airplane mode required. The phones connect the second I walk in the door.
I bring this example up because there is CLEARLY an issue with the logic of when to switch bands. Why would a phone prefer 1 crappy bar of band 4 over full bars of band 13 from a mini tower in my house 10 feet away?
The last Verizon engineer I spoke with indicated that he's seen this issue a lot with iPhones for the past few years and that he does not have the issue with Samsung phones connecting to the network extender. He switched my extender to band 4 and now our phones connect without fail as soon as I walk in the door.
iPhones do NOT like some of the slower bands (i.e. band 13 with Verizon) and seem to be programmed to avoid them AT ALL COSTS. I believe this is where many of the issues lie. The problem is, no one I've spoken with at Apple or Verizon seem to understand what I'm talking about when I start mentioning "bands". It's pretty frustrating.
Out of curiosity, have you done a Speedtest on WiFi and LTE and compared that to another device?
Interestingly the WiFi on my XS Max appears to be behaving in a similar illogical manner. At first I noticed that it drops the 5Ghz connection across my house in a spot where my iPhone 7 holds on to it.
I loaded up Airport Utility and ran the wifi scanner on both phones, and surprisingly the signal dB is pretty close between both phones. Regardless, the XSMax randomly decides to drop the wifi even with 2 bars of WiFi and automatically connects to my cell data after a few minutes.
But if I turn off Wifi Assist on the XSMax, it then stays on the 5Ghz with a usable signal and doesn't drop to cellular. Which makes me think the WiFi Assist is coded to be a little too aggressive on the XS phones. Just IMO!
I loaded up Airport Utility and ran the wifi scanner on both phones, and surprisingly the signal dB is pretty close between both phones. Regardless, the XSMax randomly decides to drop the wifi even with 2 bars of WiFi and automatically connects to my cell data after a few minutes.
But if I turn off Wifi Assist on the XSMax, it then stays on the 5Ghz with a usable signal and doesn't drop to cellular. Which makes me think the WiFi Assist is coded to be a little too aggressive on the XS phones. Just IMO!
They have no clue about telecommunications, not cell towers, not base station controllers, not home location registers, and certainly not bands or channels, nothing. This is Apple's fault and issue, not the wireless carriers. They have seemed to forget, in the midst of making new whiz bang features they can market, that numero uno is cellular connection/strength, and everything else comes a distant second. No connectivity or poor connectivity equals your phone turns into a camera and calculator. I'm in comms and have done drive testing. Rigged up van, and you go everywhere, rural, inner city, name it. Their mobile testing/drive testing group, someone is losing their job over this.
How far have you traveled from your area? My phone operates perfectly here in the SF Bay Area. I went to Southern California and the phone was nearly useless.
Interesting discussion about the iPhone failing to switch to more appropriate bands. I just came back from a Verizon store (a different one from the one I referenced much earlier in this thread). This store is located in a busy shopping district in Oakland, CA. Standing outside the store, I got 11.4 Mb/s down and 2.27 Mb/s up, with two bars showing on my XS Max. When I met with the Verizon rep inside and showed him, he pulled out his iPhone X and got around the same speeds. I tried again and got 10.2 down and 12 up, which exceeded his upload speed. He told me that Verizon's performance can vary significantly depending on where you run the test.
When I mentioned that it was ironic that the LTE service at his store was so bad, he laughed and agreed. He mentioned the range extender that Verizon sells for $250. He said he actually has one at his home in Fairfield, CA, which is located about 35 miles to the north. I told him I'd just spent almost $1400 on a phone and was not about to spend another $250 to get adequate service at my home. The other Apple phones on display there didn't have SIM cards in them so I didn't compare their speeds. I should have checked to see if the Samsung and Pixel phones had SIM cards, but I didn't. It would have been useful to see if these other brands did better at that location. (The Pixel 3 phones were on display already.)
If the failure of the iPhones to connect to a more appropriate frequency is at least part of the problem, then that's fixable in software. But it's discouraging to hear that this may be a longstanding issue with iPhones, so a fix may not be forthcoming. I'm still within the return window for my phone, and I'll have to make a decision soon. Very frustrating since I like everything else about the phone.
When I mentioned that it was ironic that the LTE service at his store was so bad, he laughed and agreed. He mentioned the range extender that Verizon sells for $250. He said he actually has one at his home in Fairfield, CA, which is located about 35 miles to the north. I told him I'd just spent almost $1400 on a phone and was not about to spend another $250 to get adequate service at my home. The other Apple phones on display there didn't have SIM cards in them so I didn't compare their speeds. I should have checked to see if the Samsung and Pixel phones had SIM cards, but I didn't. It would have been useful to see if these other brands did better at that location. (The Pixel 3 phones were on display already.)
If the failure of the iPhones to connect to a more appropriate frequency is at least part of the problem, then that's fixable in software. But it's discouraging to hear that this may be a longstanding issue with iPhones, so a fix may not be forthcoming. I'm still within the return window for my phone, and I'll have to make a decision soon. Very frustrating since I like everything else about the phone.
It has been happening since at least the iPhone 7 (on Verizon anyway). Toggling airplane mode will give you full bars on band 13. Then the phone drops to 1-2 bars of band 2/4 after about 30 seconds. This can be verified in Field Test mode. In the past, these 1-2 bars were sufficient to not drop a call, get decent data speeds, etc. On the XS, 1 bar can be detrimental.
I believe all they need to do is tweak the algorithm as to when the phone should fall back to the stronger (slower) bands. It should be more eager to switch to these bands on a call (when data speeds are less likely to matter) or when on WiFi (when data speeds definitely do not matter).
In the example I provided earlier (Verizon LTE Network Extender broadcasting on default band 13), the phone sometimes would NEVER switch to the "tower" (network extender) 10 feet away from me if airplane mode wasn't toggled. It would instead happily sit on the macro cell tower for hours on band 4 with 1-2 bars. Sometimes on calls voice packets would drop and words would be missed.
Clearly the phone isn't looking for alternative towers/bands when it should be. Apple likely has an algorithm that does not aggressively look for alternative towers/bands if the signal strength/quality is above X (let's say X = a 50% "quality" score in this hypothetical example). In the meantime, X is not cutting it on the iPhone XS. Maybe X (50%) was sufficient in previous models (i.e. Qualcomm), but for whatever reason, the iPhone XS starts to degrade when the quality gets below 52%. If this is the case, they need to change the threshold and/or frequency in which the phone evaluates the signal strength/quality it is receiving and decides to switch to a stronger band (i.e. band 13).
This particular behavior can certainly be fixed with software should Apple choose to do something about it. Will this solve everyone's issues? Not a clue! But I firmly believe the phone should be switching to stronger bands sooner than it is.
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Reporting issues using data to search the web on my new XS. Signing up for the forums here a tedious mess. YouTube loading in 1-2 minutes with 4 bars of lte. Would load instantly on android. I’d hate to switch back the camera on this thing is incredible. Please fix apple...
AT&T us west
AT&T us west
My husband and I were both having horrible issues with speeds beyond SLOW for data on our XS Max’s since activating them on launch day. Sprint sent us new XSs and we activated them the other day, and our speeds are now awesome and if not as it should be, it’s even better than the speeds were on our iPhone X’s.
Apple gave replacement device today for Xs max , speeds are significantly better on new phone . But LTE signal still show less than iPhone 8.
Going to monitor couple of days and see how it goes
Going to monitor couple of days and see how it goes
What band is PCI 106 and 273? My guess is 106 is band 12 which has a very limited amount of bandwidth. Per the T-Mobile engineer I spoke with the network will keep your phone off band 12 until signal drops below -115 dBm. What's happening, and you would probably experience that on any phone, is it finds the strongest signal and then is instructed by the tower to switch with a band with more capacity.
IMO if you're at a solid -110 dBM on Band 4/66 you are getting adequate signal and should see good speeds assuming the network is not congested. The issue I am seeing with my Xs is upload performance is terrible, side by side with an Intel iPhone 8 or X the Xs usually shows similar or better download speeds but 1/2 or worse upload. With the Xs I've also had several instances with VoLTE calls where I can hear the other end perfectly and they can't hear me.
Attached you can see side by side speed test results and signal levels. iPhone Xs is on the left and iPhone X (Intel) is on the right.
I am experiencing something odd (if this has been covered I apologize as I’ve not read the 90+ pages).
If I run a Speedtest on my XS Max (running 12.0.1), I get 100+ mbps download speeds. However, if run a test simultaneously on my Max and the wife’s 8 side by side, hers will maintain that 100+ and my Max will drop to as low as 15-20 mbps. I can recreate this over and over. Same servers. LTE.
My concern is that if I’m in a confined space with other users or in a congested area, my phone will suffer reduced speeds. Or, perhaps this is just an oddity with the Speedtest app and nothing to be concerned about. I’m really not sure.
If I run a Speedtest on my XS Max (running 12.0.1), I get 100+ mbps download speeds. However, if run a test simultaneously on my Max and the wife’s 8 side by side, hers will maintain that 100+ and my Max will drop to as low as 15-20 mbps. I can recreate this over and over. Same servers. LTE.
My concern is that if I’m in a confined space with other users or in a congested area, my phone will suffer reduced speeds. Or, perhaps this is just an oddity with the Speedtest app and nothing to be concerned about. I’m really not sure.